Chords for Gennett Records & the Murder of Scrapper Blackwell

_ _ _ _ _ [G#] _ _ _
_ _ [C#] _ _ _ _ The 1960s blues and folk revival created a new world for the long forgotten bluesmen
who [B] produced those old [C#] scratchy race records in the 1920s and 30s.
_ Sun House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Skip [F#] James were among the bluesmen discovered in
run down apartments [C#m] and rural shacks by [C#] white fans who flocked to hear them perform again.
But tragically, Scrapper Blackwell of Indianapolis, [D#m] Indiana was not among them, [F#] even though this
hero of Bob Dylan [C#] was also among the very best of that bunch.
_ _ _ [F] That's because on October 6, _ [E] 1962, Indianapolis [D#] police [C#] found Scrapper Blackwell here on 17th
Street, just north of downtown [C#] Indianapolis, lying unconscious and bleeding from two [C#m] shotgun
wounds to the chest.
[C#] _ [G#] Scrapper Blackwell would die the next day at Marion County Hospital here in Indianapolis,
and he was buried here in New Crown Cemetery [F#] at this spot, [G#] just south of [C#] downtown.
And the blues and folk revival would continue across America without him.
Oh, what could have been.
[C] From 1928 to [D#] 1935, _ Scrapper and Indianapolis pianist Leroy Carr recorded dozens of wildly
popular 78s on the Vocalium label, selling far more discs than most of their blues contemporaries.
But my personal favorite Scrapper Blackwell recordings were the solo records he did for
Jeannette Records, that being the Pioneer Small Label based in Richmond, Indiana.
In researching this book I wrote about [N] Jeannette, called Jelly Roll Bix and Hoagie, I really
fell under the spell of Scrapper Blackwell's fantastic recordings, the haunting blues lines
that seemed to almost foretell the violent death that would be awaiting him decades later.
During 1930 and 1931, Blackwell took the isolated National Road from Indianapolis to the Richmond
recording studio to [F#m] produce seven songs, mostly for Jeannette's discount Champion label.
After the Jeannette label folded in 1930, Fred Jeannette kept the Champion label alive
until _ 1934, recording many fine blues and country musicians under their real names,
from Big Bill Brunzi to Uncle Dave Naken.
_ While Blackwell's Champion release is barely [A] sold, they are very compelling to hear today,
because his strong vocals and single note picking style on the guitar sound eerily modern.
_ _ Scrapper Blackwell was 32 years old in 1935, [A#] when his partner Leroy Carr died.
It was the height of the Depression and it was hard finding [N] work for a musician.
So Scrapper would live here in this neighborhood, north of downtown for another 27 years, in
obscurity, working as a manual laborer.
But in the late 1950s, Scrapper reappeared on the local scene, thanks to local blues
enthusiasts such as the Indianapolis photographer and author Duncan Sheet.
_ Scrapper was performing live again and recording on tiny record labels with the same power
that you could hear on those [F#] original Champion records.
_ _ But Scrapper's great comeback would all end that night in October of 1962.
You see, when police finally arrived at the scene, Scrapper was unconscious, [G] bleeding
to death and unable to explain the circumstance, the weird circumstances that led to his death
and burial here.
_ Shortly after Scrapper's death, the Indianapolis police received [C#] a really important call.
An anonymous tip that claimed that Scrapper was actually [B] killed by a 75-year-old man named
Robert Bean, who [C] lived on 17th [C#] Street.
Now when they questioned Mr.
Bean, he simply claimed that Scrapper was in the back [F#] and
that's where he found the body.
But lo and behold, after they searched Mr.
Bean's [C#] house, they found a .22
caliber pistol
with bullets that matched [G#] the wounds to Scrapper's chest.
Well, at that point, Mr.
Bean [F#] had to change his story again.
He said they were drinking some [C#] homebrew in the back and he was fiddling with his gun
and after he was putting some bullets [F#] in the shell, it slipped out of his thumb, boom,
not [A] once, [C#] but twice, shooting Scrapper [F#] accidentally in the chest.
And he went on [A#] further to say that he fell to the ground and was [F#] bleeding, but I just
thought he was fine and went on in [C#m] the house.
_ [D#] I don't think that one flew very [F#] well with the [C#] Indianapolis police. _
Perhaps the only honest things that Mr.
Bean told the police [G#] was that he and Scrapper were
drinking some [F#] homebrew, _ _
_ [C#] _ and [D#] _ _ [C#] _ _
_ _ [F#] _ we _ _ _ _ were [C#] high.
_ _ Robert Bean was soon indicted for [G#] the murder of Scrapper Blackwell and within a few weeks,
the entire case just disappeared from the local newspapers.
_ [A#]
Scrapper was laid to rest [C#] here in New Crown Cemetery, just a few steps away from the grave
of the great West Montgomery and one of the world's most influential jazz guitar [A#] players,
also buried in the same cemetery.
Now we could bemoan [C#m] the fact that Scrapper Blackwell [F#] never had the opportunity to enjoy
the blues [C#m] and folk [C#] revival that so many of his fellow bluesmen enjoyed in the 1960s,
[G#] but fortunately his recordings live on forever.
It's like Bob [C#] Dylan, our Nobel laureate, said that most of our music can be traced back
to the great Scrapper Blackwell, and he can be discovered easily on CDs and on iTunes
and be discovered every year by young listeners all around [F#] the world, as this man was clearly
one of the great foundations of what we now call rock and roll music.
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